Cops Facing Firing Want Hillard To Testify

January 15, 2000|By Todd Lighty, Tribune Staff Writer.

Four Chicago police officers involved in the shooting death of an unarmed motorist requested on Friday that Supt. Terry Hillard be forced to testify at their hearing next week before the Police Board, which will determine whether they should be fired.

A Police Board official said he would likely rule on the officers' request on Tuesday, when the hearing begins. City attorneys oppose the unusual move.

Hillard has been publicly critical of the officers' conduct during a June 4 police chase along South Side streets that ended in the shooting death of LaTanya Haggerty, a 26-year-old computer analyst for Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.

The officers' lawyer, Joseph Roddy, said he wants to quiz Hillard about departmental rules governing police chases and the use of deadly force.

Roddy plans to zero in on a John Marshall Law School study completed three months after Haggerty's death, in which the school examined the department's general rules for police pursuits, traffic stops and deadly force.

The law school found that many of the departmental orders were difficult to understand because they contained technical and legal wording.

"A mere reading of them or going over them years ago at the academy may not be sufficient to allow an officer to apply them correctly under pressure in situations when there is not much time for reflection," according to the school's report to Hillard.

At a preliminary proceeding Friday, Roddy said the law school concluded that "basically Houdini couldn't figure out" the department's chase rules.

Roddy hinted he would attack the chase rules, as well as the credibility of Raymond Smith, the driver of the car in which Haggerty was riding, citing Smith's previous run-ins with police.

Lara Shayne, an assistant corporation counsel who will serve as prosecutor during the hearing, said, "The superintendent has no relevant testimony of what happened on the street June 4, 1999."

On that date, the officers--Serena Daniels, Michael Williams, Carl Carter and Stafford Wilson--said they, in two squad cars, chased Smith after he tried to run them over. They cornered Smith's car at King Drive and 64th Street, and two officers pulled him from the car.

As the officers handcuffed Smith, Daniels shot Haggerty as the young woman sat in the front passenger seat. Later, prosecutors dropped the criminal and traffic charges against Smith that the officers had filed.

Daniels had told investigators she saw a shiny object in Haggerty's hand and mistook it for a gun. But witnesses said the only object Haggerty was holding was a black cellular telephone.